Leonardo Da Vinci: 30 Quotes by a Talented Genius Personality

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci, (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath. Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".
According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote". Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.

Leonardo was, and is, also renowned as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.

Leonardo da Vinci repeatedly expressed admiration for Archimedes during his lifetime, who was his exemplar. Not only was he fascinated by the legend of Archimedes the inventor of prodigious war machines but also by his successful approach to problems of statics and engineering, from which practical applications could be drawn. Leonardo was eager to refine firearms and worked on a special steam cannon (the Architronito), attributing its paternity to Archimedes. He showed similar admiration when examining the properties of burning mirrors and, in the statics field, studied in depth the treatise On Plane Equilibria, even referring to it on the cover of Manuscript F.

Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, an armored vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics.

Da Vinci also made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.

Except for the fact that he was very talented, Da Vince's genius can be realized by reading some of his sayings and writings.

1) “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

2) “A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”

3) “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

4) “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

5) “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

6) “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

7) “The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.”

8) “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

9) “I love those who can smile in trouble...”

10) “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”

11) “Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.”

12) “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”

13) “I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”

14) “As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.”

15) “I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death”

16) “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

17) “If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.”

18) “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”

19) “The knowledge of all things is possible”

20) “Learning never exhausts the mind.”

21) “There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”